FriFormA\V: SOUNDING SPOMENIK

27 June 2024 You are invited to the event FriFormA\V: SOUNDING SPOMENIK, which will take place at the Alkatraz Gallery on Thursday, 27 June, starting at 7 pm. With the participation of: Vida Piko Vatovec - alto saxophone, Tadeja Žele - cello, Lina Rica - live visualisation, Belma Bešilć-Gal - lecture, moderating the talk, Jernej Babnik Romaniuk - field recordings, László Juhász - curator, author, talk, Nataša Serec - co-curator, producer.

FriFormA\V: SOUNDING SPOMENIK*

photographic exhibition, video installation, concerts, live visualisation, discussion, lecture

Alkatraz Gallery, AKC Metelkova mesto

27 June 2024, at 7 p.m.

Participants:
𝗩𝗶𝗱𝗮 𝗣𝗶𝗸𝗼 𝗩𝗮𝘁𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗰 – alto saxophone
𝗧𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗷𝗮 𝗭̌𝗲𝗹𝗲 – cello
𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗥𝗶𝗰a – live visualisation
𝗕𝗲𝗹𝗺𝗮 𝗕𝗲𝘀̌𝗹𝗶𝗰́-𝗚𝗮́𝗹 – lecture, discussion moderation
𝗝𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗷 𝗕𝗮𝗯𝗻𝗶𝗸 𝗥𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘂𝗸 – field recordings
𝗟𝗮́𝘀𝘇𝗹𝗼́ 𝗝𝘂𝗵𝗮́𝘀𝘇 – curator, author, discussion
𝗡𝗮𝘁𝗮𝘀̌𝗮 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗰 – co-curator, producer

Programme (7 p.m.—10 p.m.)

Photographic exhibition, Concrete Lines, and video installation, Stand Still, by Lászlo Juhász

Photographic exhibition of 40 photographs of various monuments, which were taken in Ilirska Bistrica, Dražgoše, Jasenovac and Sinj. The video installation Stand Still shall also be screened (60 minutes). The minimalist, slow-motion film will be presented on a plasma screen, with original field-recorded sound, accessible via the included headphones.

Unheard Stories: lecture by Belma Bešlić-Gál: Sound aspects of Yugoslavia's brutalist monuments

'Whereas distinctive and somewhat mysterious appearance of the National Liberation Struggle (partisan resistance during WWII) monuments in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has attracted worldwide attention and has been the subject of extensive research in recent years, we know almost nothing about their internal acoustic properties, which represent an equally interesting area for research.'

From Planning to Implementation: a conversation with the curator László Juhász, moderated by Belma Bešlić-Gál.

Ilirska Bistrica: Tadeja Žele, a solo performance on the cello, and Lina Rica's live visualisation.

The improvised solo set is strongly inspired by the memory and atmosphere of the recording that took place in August 2021 at the monument in Ilirska Bistrica. The solo cello performance is accompanied by Lina Rica's visualisation.

Dražgoše: Vida Piko Vatovec, solo saxophone performance, and Lina Rica's live visualisation.

Vida Piko Vatovec's alto saxophone solo is also improvised, and was undoubtedly inspired by the experience of a half-day recording that took place in August 2021 at the memorial complex in Dražgoše. The solo performance is accompanied by Lina Rica's visualisation.

Project description:

While the striking, enigmatic visual aspect of abstract brutalist monuments of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been well documented in recent years, we do not know much about their sonic aspects. In this context, it is worth mentioning the poetic-experimental documentary by the Croatian multimedia artist Igor Grubić, Video Portrait of Nine Monuments 2010–2015, 50'), which captures the calm sound effects and atmosphere of the surrounding area of monuments from the socialist era in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, wherewith he brings a rare insight into the soundscape of these unique architectures.

Most monuments have hollow parts that serve as resonance spaces. The most typical materials from which these historical artefacts are made are concrete pouring and steel frame with metal cover plates. Such materials doubtlessly affect sound or have sound properties! It is interesting that, so far, no one has studied, thoroughly documented and published these permanent landscape structures as acoustic spaces. Apart from the fascinating brutalist architecture, we are interested predominantly in their sonic attributes.

Most of these unique monuments were built in remote rural locations, usually far from any urbanisation, although some were placed in city centres, suburbs or near smaller settlements – all of which also presupposes a very diverse sonic ecology of the monuments.

The monuments functioned – and some still do – as a reminder of the Second World War with a clear anti-fascist connotation, and from the mid-1950s to the end of the 1970s, as the foundation and materialised symbols of Josip Broz Tito's utopian idea of a strong and unified Yugoslav state with the high-pitched slogan 'brotherhood and unity'. We treat these abstract, but undeniably iconic, modernist constructions purely as architectural works of art. In spite of all possible political and ideological layers, we believe that monuments are not solely useless politicised remnants of the communist past of the former Yugoslavia, but rather important historical artefacts that should be admired and maintained.

In 2021, we started a long-term research, exhibition, recording and publishing project, with which we research and reveal the sonic attributes of the monuments of the former Yugoslavia. We can find such monuments in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Monte Negro, Kosovo and North Macedonia.

In the framework the project, we engage local female instrumentalists, mostly younger and extremely talented professional musicians, who work in the field of free improvisation or contemporary composed music. On the spot itself, while playing a musical instrument, they explore the most responsive or fascinating-sounding parts of the monuments. In addition to deliberate sounds produced by instruments, we also document spontaneous sounds from the immediate surroundings by recording the environment.

On an annual basis, we visit two monuments, which we study through field trips, photography, audio and video recordings, and eventually release sonic recordings. For our project entitled Sounding Monument, we selected over twenty locations with enigmatic monuments. So far, we have performed field recordings in Dražgoše, Ilirska Bistrica, Sinj and Jasenovac, and we plan to visit Čačak and Popina in Serbia in July.

Links:

https://inexhaustible-editions.com/sounding-spomenik/

Presentations so far: Wien Modern, Vienna: https://www.wienmodern.at/2023-inexhaustible-editions-sounding-spomenik-de-2575

List of field recordings:

Dražgoše (conceptualised by the architect Boris Kobe and sculptor Stojan Batič; completed in 1976)

Participating musician: saxophonist Vida Piko Vatovec

Ilirska Bistrica (conceptualised by the architect Živa Baraga-Moškon and sculptor Janez Lenassi; completed in 1965)

Participating musician: cellist Tadeja Žele

Sinj (conceptualised by the architect Vuko Bombardelli; completed in 1962)

Participating musician: cellist Lucija Gregov

Jasenovac (conceptualised by the architect Bogdan Bogdanović; completed in 1966)

Participating musician: violinist Tena Novak

Presentation of the participants:

Vida Piko Vatovec is a young saxophonist who started her musical career with prof. B. Bizjak Kotnik, under whose supervision she also graduated. She graduated from the Academy of Music in Ljubljana in the class of M. Drevenšek. During her studies, she achieved high results in regional, national and international competitions, and also collaborated extensively with various ensembles, namely: the dance department of the Ljubljana Music and Dance Conservatory, the Ava chamber choir, the Wind Orchestra of the Slovenian Army and the Slovenian National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana Symphony Orchestra. Moreover, she participates in various chamber groups, such as the AG Saxophone Ensemble, the KUG Sax Sippia Saxophone Ensemble and the (former) Patetiko Saxophone Quartet. She regularly studies with established domestic and foreign professors and musicians and collaborates with young Slovene composers, such as Tilen Lebar and Gašper Muženič. In August 2021, Vida Piko Vatovec recorded for the Sounding Monument project and created deliberate saxophone sounds at the memorial complex of the architect Boris Kobe and sculptor Stojan Batič in Dražgoše.

Tadeja Žele attended music school in Postojna. She completed her studies with Ksenia Trotovšek Brlek when she was already a graduate of pedagogy and sociology at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. She completed her bachelor’s and master's degree in cello with prof. Igor Škerjanec. Since 2010, she has been teaching cello at several music schools. As a section leader, she participates in the Symphony Orchestra Vrhnika, with which she has performed several times as a soloist. In addition, she collaborates with the orchestras Cantabile, Crescendo and the Kranj High School Orchestra. In 2018, together with the cellist Katarina Kozjek, she performed the novelty Triptych by the composer Tilen Lebar, which he wrote especially for them, at the International Biennial of Contemporary Music in Koper. In August 2021, Tadeja Žele recorded the sounds of a cello for the Sounding Monument project next to the cult monument of Janez Lenassi in Ilirska Bistrica.

Lina Rica (1980) is an intermedia artist who works in the field of installations, employing video, graphics, photography, animation and sound. In her work, she tackles the social processes of the past and present worlds and their effects on the individual. In 2008, she graduated in graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She has received several awards for her prints, which are part of the International Centre of Graphic Arts, Oficina Arara, Critical Mass and Femicomix Portfolio collections. Between the years 2012 and 2016, together with Boštjan Čadež, she managed the association for the production and promotion of contemporary art and the gallery space GaleRica in Makarska. She held video performances at several festivals and events in clubs and autonomous cultural centres and collaborated with several artists. Since 2019, she has been a member of the audiovisual experimental ensemble Marta Fakuch. Since 2020, she has been a member of the audiovisual trio Etceteral. She lives and works in Ljubljana. linarica.com

Belma Bešlić-Gál is a composer, pianist, curator and artist. Belma Bešlić-Gál (1978) was born in the industrial town of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; currently, she lives in Vienna, Austria. Based on various forms of contemporary music with an emphasis on avant-garde concepts of intermedia musical theatre, her compositions range from orchestral, chamber and solo works to installations, media art and literature. The conceptual basis of her work is an intensive engagement with the phenomenon of time. By combining instruments, light, objects, architectural concepts and audiovisual projections, she focuses on exploring ways of manipulating the sensory perceptions of the audience. Other important areas of her transdisciplinary approach to various representations of contemporary composition include the integration of existentialist and futuristic ideas and concepts, the influence of microgravity and space science on the hypothetical art of the future, and the destructive effects of reactionism and nationalism on (post-Yugoslav) art, culture and society in general. / belmabeslic-gal.eu

Ljubljana-based cameraman and sound master Jernej Babnik Romaniuk (1975) has devoted himself to creative work since he was a child, and to his enthusiasm for unusual music and unusual sound spaces and everything that revolves around music and sounds, he soon added graphic design. In sound processing, he combines both audio and visual disciplines, which has been his main interest for the past decade. He has been focused mainly on site-specific recording and post-production of small groups engaged in free improvisation, unconventional wind orchestras and documentary field recording, where he found an inexhaustible source that constantly inspires him and urges him to discover fresh and unheard approaches to recording and sonic processing. With the Murmur Institute, he is preparing a series of releases entitled Spaces, materials recorded in bunkers from the Second World War, naturally formed caves, built concrete halls, old village barns, etc. From the very beginning, he has been an expert in recording Sounding Monument sessions with all post-production tasks, such as editing, mixing and mastering. / murmur.si

Journalist, curator, producer and publisher László Juhász (1980) was born in Szeged, Hungary; he studied English language and literature, American studies, and communication and media studies at the University of Szeged. He is a founder and was an editor-in-chief of the Hungarian online music magazine Improv.hu from 2002 to 2022; he has been an organiser of events in Szeged (Improv Est) since 2007, an occasional co-organizer of events in Budapest (No Wave Est) since 2015, and a co-creator and co-organizer of a series of events in Ljubljana: since 2016, at KUD Mreža FriForma with Nataša Serec, and from 2018 to 2020 at Zavod Sploh Confine aperto. Moreover, he is a founder and has been an executive producer of the recording label Inexhaustible Editions and its sub-labels Edition FriForma (with Nataša Serec) and SonoLiminl (with Robertina Šebjanič) since 2015; he is a former co-organizer of the annual workshop festival Improcon Festival – Congress Of Free Improvised Music, Arts & Thoughts in Croatia. He lived in London, the United Kigdom, for three years, where he researched and was closely involved with the contemporary British improvised music scene. In recent years, he has become more interested in the intertwining of sound, space and architecture.

Nataša Serec has been actively supporting and co-creating artistic, cultural and socially engaged events in AKC Metelkova mesto since 1993. On the Slovene new music and art scene she is active as an organizer, producer, curator, music publisher and promoter of artistic events. 17 years ago, she started organizing a series of music festivals and concert cycles (Jazz on the gravy train, Personal and Collective Festival, Metabonma, FriForma, FriFormA\V). Since 2004, she has been performing artistic interventions in public spaces (Gesamtkunstwerk Metelkova) with local and international visual artists. She holds artistic residencies at Studio Asylum and is a member of the artistic team of the Night Window Display Gallery Pešaki. She takes care of the archiving and digitisation of existing and newly created visual and textual material of the Cultural and Artistic Association Network – KUD Mreža.

Production: Cultural Artistic Association – KUD Mreža (Network) / Alkatraz Gallery / FriFormA\V / Inexhaustible Editions / edition FriForma, Ljubljana; the programme is curated by: Nataša Serec & László Juhász

Co-production: ON Rizom Institute, Ljubljana

Graphic design: Urša Rahne

Financial support: The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the City Municipality of Ljubljana – Department of Culture.